since this seems like the best board to post my idea; I came up with a theory about how droids become self aware, probably was said somewhere else and I just didn't notice, but any way....

My theory is that all droids have the capibility to become intelligent over time. one way for droids to become setient is to add something to their coding, i.e. the Ig-88/ Mechis III example. it seems that they can also gain awairness over time if they don't have regular memory wipes, the 4-LOM example.

Ig-88 was programed to have semi-inteligence by the scientists at Holowan in order to execute his assination and other missions more efficiently. but durring one of the startup sequnces, he became fully aware and slautered nearly the whole staff of Holowan. Getting to the point, he showed how intelligence can be programed by uploading his setience into the empty bodies of the other 3 Ig-88 droids, he also showed something like this durring the takeover and subsequent control of the droid producing facilities on Mechis III.

4-LOM started out as a regular protocol droid, but eventually developed quirks about how the people he served left their belongings unsafely. starting from a minor abnormality, he eventually devoped curiosity, and decided to become a bounty hunter another example of indepent thought from programing quirks w/ infequent memory wipes: [quote] p. 252 of NJO:RD

Originally posted by ewok hunter it seems that they can also gain awairness over time if they don't have regular memory wipes

Yeah.

This is the standard idea.

Think of it as your computer.

As you work/play/surf/whatever else you do on your PC, stuff gets logged into memory. Cookies, old files, websites in your "favourites" menu that you haven't visited in years, all sorts of stuff. Every now and then, you have to go through it and throw out all the old data.

This is how droids work. As they function, they store data. Little quirks from their masters, things they've seen, memory logs of their day-to-day life. For the most part, this is useful ("Hey, A-3K, where did you put that crate of turbo-capacitors?"). Naturally, this mass of data can be transfered (just as I could, if I wanted to, copy my cookies and recycle-bin onto a new machine).

Eventually though, droids start to go beyond their programming. Why and how this works still aren't clear, but they do. THis is a problem because droids are, after all, machines, and you don't want your property deciding that you're not doing things right.

Memory-wipes are a convenient way to avoid this "problem," as they just delete everything except the droid's hard-wired programming (and anything that the owner specifically sets aside; most mem-wipes are done professionally, to avoid end-user screwups).

Basically, droids are the perfect slaves. If they disobey you, you can just erase their personalities (or even have them scrapped and replaced).

Han Gave her a smile he knew to be inufferable and thumed his comlink. "Goldenrod, Where is Tarc now?"

C-3P0's voice, sounding distincly aggrieved, came back amoment later: "He's in the upper quadlaser cupola, huddling in the seat so he can't be seen. And sir, I do have a name."

BeastMaster good point, but that begs to ask if and how droids can run out of memory to process things, because I imagine that there is only a limited amount of space in their drives, and some droids, like Ig-88, never had a memory wipes after achiving setince.